dragmagpuff said:
My top 4 (in no particular order) is The Sopranos, The Wire, Mad Men, and Breaking Bad.
The Sopranos is the first great prestige TV show. The mafia plot points are good, but not what makes it great. The character study of Tony Soprano showed that you could make essential TV of a man talking to his therapist or two people lost in the woods if the writing was great.
The Wire should probably be required watching to graduate high school just to teach people that real life issues are complicated and nuanced, but that nuance doesn't get you promoted or elected. The show is probably some of the best social commentary of all time. (If you like The Wire and how David Simon approached real world issues, you would also probably like "Show Me a Hero", a miniseries about public housing development in Yonkers in the 80s)
Mad Men is the fully character-driven evolution of The Sopranos, IMO. It might be the greatest show of all time that doesn't rely on a dark/crime premise. I also can understand why some people may not have it high on their lists.
Breaking Bad is probably the best plot-driven show of all time. I've never seen a show ramp up the tension as consistently and believably as this show while still relying on excellent characters.
good post and i agree on all of that.
interestingly to me this illuminates just how good
Justified is though - it excels in all of these areas, not as much as each of those for their respective strengths but perhaps more than any other show it achieves all of those at a high level.
Justified:
- has some of the character study of a prime character, although Raylan is nowhere near as complex as Tony but the same kind of family loyalties etc. are being tested.
- it has the serial season kind of thing that the Wire did where each seasons is nearly a subplot arc unto it's own with some different characters and theme of sorts. again not on the level of the Wire but still strong.
- it has some great character driven development - Boyd of course, Wynn Duffy, Quarles, the Bennets, Arlo, the Crows just a bunch of great character driven elements. Maybe not the level of Mad Men but again very strong.
- and then it has great plot development and tension ala BB with the escalation of stuff. Of course like BB it is drug centric so it has that similarity.
It just struck me when reading those that Justified isn't the best in any of those areas necessarily but I think it's great overall because it is very very good in all of them.
